1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information collection system, information collection device, terminal device management program, information collection management program, information collection management method, and terminal device management method, for transmission from a terminal device to an information collection device of answer information responding to question information, and for collection of information.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-332897, filed Nov. 17, 2004, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
When conventional personal computers (hereafter “PCs”), printers, and other equipment are sold as products, product marketing is performed, or data for reference in developing new products is obtained, by ascertaining the type of user making a purchase, the purposes for which the purchase was made, and similar.
In such cases, for example, a postcard is inserted in advance into the packaging box of the packed product in order to have the user register and fill out a questionnaire, to obtain information relating to the user who has purchased the product. By having users who have purchased the product return such a postcard, information relating to users is collected.
In the case of the above-described technology, there is the problem that if the user loses the postcard inside the packaging box, information relating to the user cannot be collected. Moreover, there is the problem that, in order to collect information relating to the user, the user must voluntarily send the postcard. With respect to the distribution source, when the product has been sold via a sales agent, it is possible to ascertain which products have been sold in what quantity by the agent, but there is a problem in that it is not possible to ascertain the sales route beyond the agent, that is, to what users the products have been sold. There is a further problem in that, in the cases in which a father buys a product for his child to use, or in the cases in which a product is purchased by a corporation for use by an employee of the corporation, and in other cases in which a representative purchases the product but a family member other than the representative uses the product, even if information regarding the purchaser is obtained, it is not possible to collect information relating to the actual user of the product.
In addition to the above-described method using a postcard, systems have been proposed to collect information relating to users by utilizing the Internet (see for example Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2001-250048).
In the related art, when a user has the will to apply for a prize, the network information collection processing system enables collection of information related to a user upon application for the prize; but there is the problem that information relating to users who do not apply for the prize cannot be collected. That is, there is the problem that if a user does not voluntarily apply for a prize, then the entity offering the prize cannot obtain information relating to the user.
Thus in the above-described technology and the related art, there are the problems that the user must voluntarily initiate contact, and that users actually using the product cannot be ascertained.